Crypto's 'Quiet Quitting' Crisis: Travis Kling on the Industry's Existential Moment

Crypto is experiencing a pretty powerful vibes recession.

There are more memecoins, and more altcoins, and more NFTs, down infinitely from their peaks. Not to mention more token unlocks from VCs that are pressuring altcoins. In short, vibes are down.

To Ikigai Asset Management founder Travis Kling, who recently published another viral anthropological take on the industry in 2024, it's not at all surprising to find crypto optimism in the proverbial shitter.

"I think what's become apparent to me is that the good guys are getting their ass kicked by the bad guys. That was that was made blatantly obvious in 2022. In some ways, we're still dealing with the aftermath of the damage done in 2022," Kling told Coinage. "When we were in pretty deep bear markets, I think you still had broad brushstrokes of optimism, and you still had acute project specific excitement, and I think you have a lot less of that today."

Kling's prior post, titled, "Financial Nihilism: The Zeitgeist of Young America," went viral and his recent update on what he sees as the latest trend sweeping the space — "quiet quitting" — hit again as it captured the exhaustion and disillusionment grow among industry veterans and enthusiasts alike. He told Coinage that the post wasn’t born from personal frustration alone, but rather as a reflection of conversations he’s had with many others in the industry. “It seemed like it had to be a trend,” Kling remarked, pointing out that a shared sentiment was emerging: disillusionment with the space’s lack of tangible progress despite significant milestones.

"Quiet quitting," he argues, is simply the next logical step from the same sense of futility that pervades not just the crypto world but the broader financial landscape.

While price downturns and market crashes might explain part of the malaise, Kling sees the deeper issue stemming from structural problems within the crypto ecosystem itself. The central issue: the outsized influence of venture capitalists and the lack of value accrual to everyday participants. “You can’t have value accrual to holders or backers or retail,” Kling says, “It all has to go to these VCs.” This, he suggests, is at the heart of why retail investors, who once saw crypto as a revolutionary escape from traditional finance, are now quietly quitting the space.

Kling’s frustrations aren’t just theoretical. He points to the structural challenges faced by crypto projects trying to create real value. He gives credit to Bitcoin and the explosion of stablecoins, which have seen significant adoption, but beyond that, he admits that the crypto space feels “thin.” Despite enormous venture capital pouring into the ecosystem — nearly $20 billion over the last few years — real-world applications outside of speculative trading and blockchain infrastructure remain limited.

“Altcoins are underperforming Bitcoin by 50% on average year-to-date,” Kling notes. Now, he says, the excitement is notably absent. Despite a market cap far larger than it was in previous cycles, the industry seems to be languishing under its own weight.

And yet, even after surviving the FTX collapse, Kling still believes in crypto’s potential to change the world. He’s not ready to throw in the towel just yet. “I still believe in the potential of the technology to make the world a better place,” he says.

In particular, Kling is expecting a major shift with the upcoming U.S. presidential election. He’s not shy about expressing his belief that a Trump victory could bring about regulatory clarity that the crypto industry desperately needs.

“We’ve created worthless governance tokens to make sure they’re not securities,” he says, referring to the misguided attempts by many crypto projects to sidestep regulatory scrutiny by stripping their tokens of real utility. In Kling’s view, the regulatory uncertainty under the current administration has stifled innovation, pushing the industry further into speculative dead-ends like memecoins and NFTs that don't actually deliver real value to the space.

While not everyone shares Kling’s optimism about a Trump win, he argues that the administration would provide the kind of regulatory reset the industry needs. If regulatory clarity comes, he sees the potential for a real shift in the ecosystem — one where altcoins, instead of being speculative vehicles, can finally start proving their worth through real-world applications.

 "That's almost amazing that we've screwed up as bad as we have and still are so much in the driver's seat," Kling said.

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